Κυριακή, 24 Φεβρουαρίου 2013

Harlem Shake sweeps Athens

Thousands of teenagers
flooded a park in central Athens
on Saturday to take part in the first Greek version of the Harlem Shake, the
latest viral video to hit the Internet.

The new dance craze
appeared to have started with a posting by a vlogger (A vlogger is someone who
posts embedded videos regularly to his blog) and spread quickly, with more than
12,000 Harlem Shake videos posted and watched up to 44m times in the first two
weeks of February, according to YouTube.

Local teenagers responded
enthusiastically to the call put out on social media to create a massive Harlem
Shake video in Athens
and came armed with costumes, funny props and even smoke flares.

"I came here with all
my friends to support the Greek Harlem Shake to have fun and laughs and
whatever happens," said 17-year-old Giorgos, who came dressed as an air
hostess and clambered up onto the roof of the nearby train station and lit
smoke flares with his friends.

Brothers Pavlos and
Stefanos, who were dressed up as mustard and ketchup bottles, said they came to
send a message to the world that the country is not just about strikes and
protests.

"We want to send a
message that here in Greece
we're not dead, and that the young people are here and present," said
18-year-old Pavlos. "Yeah, we're going to shake things up here
today," added 19-year-old Stefanos.Young Greek comedian Jeremy
who organized the event said that the aim was to create the Harlem Shake video
with the most participants.

"We wanted it to be
the biggest one yet, so we chose a very central location. We wanted it to have
the Acropolis in the background, but unfortunately it wasn't possible, but I
think we managed to gather a lot of people," said the 22-year-old Jeremy,
who directed his fellow online comedian, Mikeius, in the video.

About 5000 people took part
in the video which will be uploaded on Jeremy's YouTube channel, according to
organizers.The Harlem Shake began as a
dance in the 1980s but the latest version featured on the thousands of online
videos is an electronic dance track by 23-year-old Brooklyn DJ Baauer who
released the single last year.

The interest has also
helped drive Baauer's sales, with the single topping the iTunes America chart and coming in second in the iTunes
UK and Australia lists last week. Source Reuters